Former Playboy Bunny Holly Madison reveals she has autism

Former Playboy bunny Holly Madison has revealed she has been diagnosed with “high-executive functioning” autism.

Former Playboy bunny Holly Madison revealed she was diagnosed with autism, sharing she has “high-executive functioning” but still misses social cues. Picture: Supplied

Holly Madison revealed she’s been diagnosed with autism.

“The doctors told me that I have high-executive functioning, which pretty much means that I can go about my life and do things ‘normally,’” the former Playboy bunny said on Friday’s episode of the Talking To Death podcast.

Madison, 43, explained that she is “highly functioning” and understands that her diagnosis may not be “as extreme” as others on the spectrum, reports Page Six.

Holly Madison revealed she has been diagnosed with autism. Picture: Holly Madison

The former Playmate shared that she is still “highly functioning” but may miss out on social cues. Picture: Holly Madison

“I’m not the spokesman for everybody. They call it a spectrum for a reason,” she noted.

Madison went on to share that when she first received the diagnosis, she recalled how the signs were there all the way back from when she was a child.

“I’ve been suspicious of it for a while because my mum told me that she was always suspicious that that was a thing,” she said.

“The first thing she noticed was that I would zone out a lot as a kid, and people would always ask her, ‘What is wrong with her? What is she doing?’ And my mum would just be like, ‘She’s thinking.’”

Madison added that she has “always” struggled with “not recognising social cues” or “not picking up” on things “the same way” other people did.

“I just made excuses for it. I thought it was because I grew up in Alaska, and then around middle school, moved to Oregon, and I thought, ‘Well, that was just a big social change,’” she recalled.

Madison, who previously dated Hugh Hefner, shared how she had “signs” of her autism growing up. Picture: Getty

“So I’m just very introverted. Like, that’s kind of always how I wrote it off.”

However, the Holly’s World alum explained that some of her past social struggles — now explained by her diagnosis — had previously “rubbed [people] the wrong way.”

“They think I’m, like, stuck up or snobby or think I’m better than everybody else,” she recalled. “I think because I’m more quiet, I’ve only recently learned to make eye contact [and] I’m often off in my own thoughts, so people take that as offensive.”

She added that she doesn’t “have a gauge” to tell when others are finished speaking, which leads her to accidentally interrupting people and “[pissing] people off.”

The Holly’s World alum shared that her lack of social awareness would sometimes rub people the “wrong way.” Picture: Getty

Holly wrote off her behaviour as just being “very introverted”. Picture: Getty

Today, Madison said that she will “apologise” to others if she realises she interrupted or spoke over them and will “tell them why” by explaining her diagnosis.

Continuing, Madison urged others to not “take it personally” when she isn’t hitting the correct social cues, because she’s simply “not on the same social wavelength” as other people.

“Everyone operates differently and maybe I think interacting with anybody, just have a little bit of patience because you don’t know what they’re dealing with or what their level of social function is, you know?”

Playboy Magazine publisher Hugh Hefner (C) with playmates Holly Madison (L) and Bridget Marquardt (R). Picture: AFP

The former Playboy Bunny has earned a reputation for divulging stories from her time at the Playboy Mansion.
During the very first episode of the podcast Girls Next Level, Madison and fellow ex-playmate Heather McDonald delved into revelations about life at the Mansion and their intimate encounters with Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

“He wouldn’t move. He would be like a bump on the log in the middle of the bed,” said Madison of her sexual experiences with Hefner.

In another episode with Bridget Marquardt, Madison alleged Hefner had a baby oil fetish.

“I do not recommend this. It is an infection waiting to happen. It’s disgusting. I don’t know what his hang-up was with it.”

Holly Madison, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson on the cover of Playboy magazine, November 2005. Picture: Playboy

She also compared the Mansion to a cult in the A&E docuseries The Secrets of Playboy, citing isolation and control. Madison further chronicled her experiences in the 2015 memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny.

“The reason I think the Mansion was very cult-like looking back on it is because we were all kind of gaslit and expected to think of Hef as like this really good guy,” Madison alleged in the clip.

“And you started to feel like, ‘Oh, he’s not what they say in the media, he’s just a nice man.’

“It was so easy to get isolated from the outside world there.

“You had a nine o’clock curfew. You were encouraged to not have friends over. You weren’t really allowed to leave unless it was like a family holiday.”

This article originally appeared on Page Six and was reproduced with permission.